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Viewing Blog: Stacy Whitman's Grimoire, Most Recent at Top

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Stacy Whitman specializes in fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults. She spent three years as an editor for Mirrorstone, the children’s and young adult imprint of Wizards of the Coast in Seattle. She holds a master’s degree in children’s literature from Simmons College. Before that, she edited elementary school textbooks at Houghton Mifflin and interned at the Horn Book, as well as a brief stint as a bookseller. Stacy edited such favorite fantasy titles for children and young adults as the highly acclaimed YA series Hallowmere, the middle grade fantasy adventure series that debuted with Red Dragon Codex, and The New York Times best-selling picture book A Practical Guide to Monsters.

If you didn't see me hyping this up on pretty much all social media on Thursday and Friday, here's your chance to know about a sweet deal for all my books, this week only (ends Friday)---the Tu Books Friends & Family Sale.

This is our way of saying thank you to our supporters over the years, and to celebrate the release of our fourth season of books. Not to mention the 1-year anniversary of the publication of Cat Girl's Day Off and Vodnik. Whatever you'd like to celebrate (the 1 1/2 year anniversary of the release of Tankborn!), celebrate with us by using the coupon code and by sharing the sale on to your friends and family.

Feel free to share this on with anyone who might be interested--it's a great deal for librarians and teachers! Use the code FAMILY at check-out.

FYI, we seem to be having some trouble with the international ordering, but if you call the office at 212-779-4400 with the coupon code FRIENDS, we can still give you the 35% off your order for international customers (no free shipping, sorry).

With new titles come new responsibilities, which means more to keep track of. I'm about to overhaul my desk and my task-management system, so before I really dig in beyond cleaning my desk, I thought I'd throw the questions out there:

What's your favorite task-management program? Preferably one that allows you to set deadlines for tasks and organize complicated subjects while being able to prioritize.

What are your favorite resources for customizing your desk? I'm looking for ideas for using vertical space in a cubicle, in particular. I have some bookshelves I could repurpose, too, if necessary, but I'd prefer to be able to hang something from my cube wall. I'm looking particularly at things like this, but I'm wondering if I might be missing some possibility, particularly something that could hang above the computer and hold more than just paper. And for something that could hold large stacks of 11 x 17 paper (galleys) and such---piles of paper that I generally need in plain sight but not always right on the surface of my desk.

How do you keep e-mail and other digital resources organized? Any particular systems you prefer? (I'm doing much better on the computer than on my desk, but while I'm in this organizing kick, I'm also planning on integrating these ideas into e-organization as well.)

Any resources you go to for office organization, particularly desks and file systems? Links, please!

(My LJ crossposter seems to have died suddenly. Suggestions for a new cross-poster from WordPress also welcome.)

You might notice some changes happening in my bio below my posts, on my About Me page, and on my social media sites. I’ve already mentioned it on Facebook, but I thought I’d better note it here, as well. For the last three years, I’ve been editorial director of Tu Books, focusing on the editorial side. Now my responsibilities have expanded to include marketing and sales, and so my title has changed to publisher to reflect that change in duties.

What this means for writers: I won’t have as much time to accept new submissions, so from time to time our submissions guidelines will reflect that we’ve closed to unagented submissions. We did this over the holidays, and haven’t yet reopened those submissions; I need time to catch up on what we’ve already received, including a nice large number of New Visions Award submissions. So keep writing, and watch for when we open for submissions periodically. This will allow me to concentrate my editorial time on the books we’ve already contracted, with concentrated windows during which I’ll seek new voices.

While this is a big change for me, for the purpose of writers things shouldn’t change too much.

Hanukkah is in full swing, and Christmas is right around the corner. Thinking about getting a book for that teen or kid in your life? Or for the adult YA reader in your life (you are welcome in this no-judgement zone; we love YA too!). Don’t forget to include Tu Books in those plans! Here are a few examples of people you’re looking to find a gift for.

For the reader looking for comedy (sometimes light, sometimes a little morbid):

For the teen looking for something with an edge:

For the middle-grade reader or young teen looking for a “clean” read:

For fans of folklore and fairy tales:

For fans of science fiction, especially technology and space-related:

For fans of Twilight:

For fans of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Chicago:

Got any other kinds of readers in your life that need a Tu Book recommendation? Ask away in the comments!

Have you been waiting for the right time—for example, a holiday promotional event—to buy a Tu Book or two? We’ll be sending out a special holiday discount to all our e-news subscribers, so sign up for our e-news to be sure that you’ll be in on the action.

You’ll see on that link that there are four options on the e-news: one for everything, one that is targeted for authors and illustrators—including publishing advice and contest announcements, another that focuses just on the books themselves, and another for teachers and librarians that includes classroom helps and links to resources on our site. You can sign up for all of them, or just one or two.

And the discount coupons don’t just come during the holidays—each e-news comes with discount codes just for e-news subscribers.

I’m updating my dragon booklist today and putting it on Pinterest. Now that my nephew is eight, he’s into full-on middle-grade books, and STILL loves dragons, three years later. So what dragon books have come out in the last three years? What books did we keep off the list last time because they weren’t that great for readalouds? Let me know in the comments here, as I think the old post is old enough that the comments have closed there.

ETA 11/6/12: As with all my book lists, I’m putting this on Pinterest so I can more easily keep this list up-to-date. For a more recent version—including the books mentioned below and books published since 2010—see my Clean Reads for Teens board.

I have a friend who is the leader of a church group for girls 12-18, and she asks:

I want to set up a little library for our YW. [Young Women] These are multi-cultural girls, low income, some from illegal families. I would love to get your suggestions as to good books to put in the library. Since the library will be at the church, they do need to be on the “clean” side, but the girls range from age 13-17 and I think can handle some more complicated themes.

I have a start of a list here, but would love your additions to the list. “Clean” should include nothing stronger than “darn” or the occasional “crap” or “hell,” and on-screen violence should be kept to a minimum; no sex/sexual conduct beyond kissing/holding hands (at least, not in-scene), though romance is great. That doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t handle tough subjects, though. The Maze Runner, for example, is dystopian, but still a clean read overall. Even a book that tackled rape and its aftermath, or something similarly violent, could be appropriate for a list like this depending on how it’s written.

In general, I’m an advocate for good literature over judging a book by what isn’t in it, and my friend is that kind of reader, too. But given that this is a church-associated library, the suggestions do need to be “appropriate,” if you know what I mean. Feel free to suggest titles that might not be shelved in a church library ONLY if they’re borderline (i.e., something my friend my suggest the girls look up on an individual basis if she feels they’re ready for them).

For example, The Hunger Games may not be for everyone. I love it, and would hand it to any teen I knew who didn’t have a problem with a little violence. But some teens are more sensitive than others, so it might be important in a church context to gauge just how well the reader might welcome the visuals they’d get from that book, especially when it might as easily be picked up by a 12-year-old as a 15-year-old. (Then again, given that we live in a dystopia and modern teens know it, perhaps they’d be just fine with it.) Public library, no problem. But it’s the kind of thing that a conservative church library might not be the best place for.

This is NOT a fantasy-only list. Feel free to add YA-appropriate “clean reads,” particularly but not limited to multicultural books, from any genre. I’m just biased for SFF, that’s all. It is a tough list to assemble, though, because I hate to recommend something as “clean” when I haven’t had a chance to read it myself.

The Maze Runner, James Dashner

The Sisters Grimm series, Michael Buckley *

Conrad’s Fate, Diana Wynne Jones

The Dalemark Quintet,Diana Wynne Jones

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle and its sequels

Matched, Ally Condie (to be published in Nov. 2010)

The Princess and the Hound, Mette Ivie Harrison, and its sequels

Princess of the Midnight Ball, Jessica Day George, and its sequel Princess of Glass

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, 2008, Nahoko Uehashi, and its sequel, Moribito II (this is technically a middle grade book, but the cool thing about it is that it can be appreciated by all ages–the main character is a 29-year-old woman who protects a young king)

Beauty, Robin McKinley (and she rewrote this same tale later as a more complicated book, Rose Daughter)

The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Pope

The Agency: A Spy in the House, Y.S. Lee

The Agency: The Body at the Tower, Y.S. Lee

The Hallowmere series, Tiffany Trent and coauthors (be forewarned, though, that it’s out of print and only 6 of 10 books were published, so the end is on hold indefinitely)

There are so many books I want to recommend but can’t, because in this case a book with even the occasional s-word wouldn’t be something we’d want to put in a booklist handed out at church or in a church library. That leaves out excellent titles such as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, but hopefully the girl who is the right reader for that book will find it anyway.

So, that gives us a starting point. What other books might be suggested for this list? I’m low on historical fiction, contemporary realism, and non-fiction, mostly because I’ve just listed a few good books off my own shelves and pulled a few titles from the multicultural SFF post. There are SO many titles about civil rights and slavery—feel free to suggest some, as I only have one on this list—but there are so many other time periods and issues that books tackle, too. So, light and heavy, as long as its clean. Go!

* Technically, this is a middle grade series, but the books are loved by older girls too and I think would be a fun recommendation for girls who like fairy tales.

** Starred titles may have a little bit more violence than you might want in the library; you might want to read it first to be sure.

*** Can someone remind me, as it’s been a while, whether the language in these books goes beyond made-up cursing and slang? Or if, in the case of Impossible, the rape scene is too graphic for a conservative audience?

We’re celebrating here at Tu Books today, because one of our fall books, Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, has received a starred review from School Library Journal. Our first star as an imprint, in fact! Celebrate with us and get a peek at part of the review:

“Written in the style of magic realism, this is an enchanting look at Mexican mysticism, coupled with the realistic celebration of the true meaning of family. The sisters’ relationships are believably drawn, and the juxtaposition of modern realities and ancient Aztec mythology elucidates the importance of the spiritual side of life in Latin cultures. The plot is well paced, with the illicit nature of the girls’ entry into Mexico adding drama to their adventure. While some readers may find the interweaving of the magical elements somewhat unsettling at first, they are sure to be intrigued by both the unusual qualities of the mythical characters and the sense of adventure that lies behind every twist and turn of the girls’ revelatory journey. As with McCall’s Under the Mesquite (Lee & Low, 2011), this is a peek into Mexican American culture, but its ties to the supernatural add an interesting dimension.”

If you’re in New York City and have the time (i.e., you’re not out volunteering or salvaging your own home) the A Is for Anansi conference at NYU this weekend is still on, despite the university being shut down for the week after the hurricane due to flooding and electrical outages. That is now taken care of and they’re getting back on their feet, and looking forward to discussing literature for children of African descent on Friday evening and all day Saturday.

There’s an RSVP number at that link, but if that isn’t working (I’ve heard there might be troubles with it), don’t worry—just show up. The conference is free to the public, so anyone may come.

I’ll be on the fantasy/science fiction panel on Saturday, along with Nnedi Okorafor and Zetta Elliott, which I’m really looking forward to. We’ll be talking about the scarcity of fantasy/science-fiction books featuring children of African decent and how we hope to fix that. I hope you can make it!

Are you starting off on your yearly Nanowrimo marathon? If so, perhaps you’re thinking about how to diversify your cast or settings. Preferably both, right? This month I’m working on at least one new diversity post, but I also thought perhaps a list of existing resources in one place would be useful. Most of these links, which I’ve been sharing via Twitter and Facebook as I find them, can also be found on the CBC Diversity Resources page, specifically on the resources for writers page, along with resources directed at other publishing professionals such as editors, sales and marketing, and booksellers. I’ve added a few more recent articles/sites that I’ve recently run into, as well.

This is kind of a hodgepodge of links, but I think it’ll help you have plenty to think about. If I run into anything more in the next couple of days, I’ll likely add it. Most of these links apply to writing cross-culturally, but as I like to remind people, this can mean anyone writing from a perspective not their own. I’ve talked to New York City-based writers who make assumptions about Iowans based on what they’ve seen on TV that I as a Midwesterner find unbelievable at best. I’ve known probably as many writers of color who want to write about different cultures that fascinate them as white writers who would like to write about people of color. In all of these cases, if you aren’t writing “what you know,” then research is involved. You have to know what questions to ask, what assumptions you’re making because of your own worldview that your character wouldn’t make. These resources will help you with that.

Though, beware, there’s a lot of info here. If you’re Nanoing, perhaps you might want to go with one at a time to leave yourself time to write!

Chimamanda Adichie’s transformative TED talk, The Dangers of a Single Story, shows us what happens when writers focus on only one kind of story, and how a multitude of voices from minority cultures need to be heard for that danger to pass away.

When writing cross-culturally, we need to remember whether we’re acting as an invader, a tourist, or a guest. Nisi Shawl addresses how to watch out for stereotypes, bad dialects, and other problematic portrayals of people of color.

A Tumblr that seeks to provide a visual representation of the everyday of microaggressions, “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.” Each event, observation and experience posted is not necessarily particularly striking in and of themselves. Often, they are never meant to hurt—acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult.

Uma Krishnaswami on the use of parenthetic comma phrases to explain cultural details to the reader as if the reader were always an outsider to the culture. How else might these details be conveyed without alienating readers who come from that culture?

Peggy McIntosh provides a classic list of privileges which a white middle class woman enjoys that many of other socioeconomic statuses or races do not. An example for writers seeking to write from a perspective not their own to muse on their own privileges, whether similar or different, so they can see their blind spots.

Things I Don’t Have to Think about Today

In the same vein as the above, science fiction writer John Scalzi talks about “Things I Don’t Have to Think about Today” paired with his post on narrative usurpation, covering why he wrote “Things I Don’t Have to Think about Today.”

Uma Krishnaswami interviews Stacy Whitman about using cultural experts to read cross-cultural writing or to check details of a controversial or historical subject (even when the writer is of that culture).

This book by Joseph Shaules is directed to potential US expats living abroad helping them to think about cultural differences and ways to adapt to their new countries and enjoy the journey. But when read from the perspective of a writer, the questions Shaules raises can be applied to world building and culture building in writing.

My talk on the need for diversity in fantasy and science fiction (includes a resources for writers section in part 3).

The Language of the NightThis book is unavailable electronically and also out of print, but if you can find Ursula K. Le Guin’s collection used or at your library, published by HarperCollins in 1978 and 1989, two excellent essays for writers on diversity are “American SF and the Other” and “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?”

As I was talking about yesterday, Hurricane Sandy has affected us at Lee & Low—our office is still currently without power—o we understand that it has made it hard especially for those in the path of the storm to get your New Visions entry into the mail. After all, in the middle of all this, a lot of us have more important things to worry about, like electricity and food. Subway and train service is also still a problem, which might be essential for someone trying to get to the post office, and I’m not sure if many affected post offices are back up and running yet.

All the other guidelines remain in effect. The contest page will be updated when we are able to do so—can’t change it myself and those who can don’t have access right now.

Given that those who need this deadline most might not even have electricity right now, please share this far and wide and please retweet, Facebook, and share on your blogs and other social networks today and perhaps a few times later this week. Please get the word out. Thanks, and for those who are hardest hit by this storm, our thoughts are with you.

P.S. If you’re in another area and wondering how you can help with the hurricane, I’ve heard that they have had to cancel several local blood drives due to the infrastructure damage. If you can donate blood, that might be the best thing you can do, particularly because on the night of the storm they had to evacuate an entire hospital down at NYU. You might also consider donating money to the Red Cross.

I have just weathered the hurricane in relative style—thankfully, my neighborhood came out relatively unscathed compared to other places. I still have power and internet (mostly, though some flickers), and I live on high ground. A friend and I just took a walk around the neighborhood, and the worst most of us got here were some downed trees and branches and some business canopies half-torn off. Down by the river, it’s still high, but thankfully in this neighborhood there’s not much down by the river except a park.

Further downtown it’s not such a bright tale, especially down by the waterfront here in Manhattan and in Brooklyn and Queens, and particularly over in New Jersey, which seemed to have gotten the brunt of it. From the press conference I just saw with Greg Christie, it’s going to be a while for New Jersey to really recover from this. The word “unprecedented” keeps coming up—this was a storm like no other on record in this area. It looked like a Cat 1, but the winds and the storm surge acted more like a Cat 3 or 4, from what I hear.

What that means for the New Visions contest, since I’ve gotten a lot of worried emails in the last couple of days from people worried about their entry either being received on time, or people in the path of the storm who haven’t been able to get out to mail their entries:

The deadline is a postmark deadline of Oct. 31, not a receipt deadline. So as long as you’re able to mail your entry by tomorrow, you’ll be fine.

However, particularly for those in the path of the storm, I understand that you’ve got a lot more on your mind right now than writing, and we don’t know when full services like the subway and the post offices will be back to normal. For today, I’m just going to encourage those of you who can to mail your entries by tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll probably know a lot more about the assessments of damage and timelines and such, and I’ll know whether I can even get in to the office this week. So tomorrow once we know a little more, I’ll announce if we might be able to allow a small extension, particularly for those in the path of the storm, in the greater New York/New Jersey area particularly. I don’t know yet, but I wanted to reassure you that we understand and sympathize, as we’re dealing with this storm as well.

For now, if you can make it to the post office by tomorrow, just go ahead and send your entry that way. No need for any special delivery services like FedEx or UPS—in this situation, it will be *harder* for them because they don’t know when they’ll be able to get back into New York City, so from what I understand they’re not taking packages. The post office will go ahead and take your package, and they will deliver it when they can. As long as the postmark is Oct. 31 or earlier, you’re fine.

Thanks for your patience as we figure out what’s going on in the aftermath of this storm.

Now that yesterday was the official release day for Diverse Energies, both fall Tu books are officially out! Go forth and purchase! Tell your friends! Tell your family! Buy one for the dog!

It looks like the hardcover is not quite released yet on Amazon, which means that books are en route to their warehouses from our warehouse, and that pre-orders will start shipping soon. The Kindle version is available as well. So go ahead and pre-order the hardcover if Amazon is your thing—it’ll be along very soon.

At B&N, the Nook version is available and the hard copy is orderable both in person and online. You can also find it at most major online retailers, and directly from Lee & Low on our site (click the cover). The e-book will also soon be available in the Google Play store and iBookstore.

If you prefer a local independent, make sure to ask your local indie to stock it if they aren’t already doing so! Your word of mouth makes a huge difference for small presses like us. If you’re in Oregon or want to order online from Powells, I know that Powells Cedar Hills has signed copies (by Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo) left from a Sirens signing, so you might be able to track those down.

And if you haven’t checked out Summer of the Mariposas yet, it’s been out for a couple weeks already! What are you waiting for? If you’re in Texas, I hear that the book is in the Local Author section of a few B&Ns. If it’s not in yours, request it! Same for your local indie. For ordering online, it’s available at all major retailers in hardcover (including on the Lee & Low site—click the cover) and e-book. GoogleKindleNook iBooks

And if you’re more of a library type, if your local library system hasn’t already ordered the book, be sure to request it! Both books have gotten GREAT reviews (I’ll post a few below) and any library would be enriched to have them.

And when you have finished the books and savored them, may I ask that you review them at the online venue of your choice? Reviews at Goodreads and Amazon really help out, if you’re looking for a way to support Tu Books!

Praise for Summer of the Mariposas

“In her first fantasy, Pura Belpré winner McCall (Under the Mesquite, 2011) tells the story of five sisters and their myriad adventures as they travel from their home in Texas to Mexico. When narrator and eldest Odilia and her sisters, Juanita, Velia, Delia and Pita, find a dead man in their swimming hole, Odilia wants to call the authorities. She is soon overruled by her sisters, who clamor to return the man to his family and visit their grandmother, all of whom live in Mexico. What follows is a series of adventures that hover somewhere on the border between fantasy and magical realism as the sisters are helped and hindered by supernatural forces including Latin American legends La Llorona, lechuzas and chupacabras. . . . Originality and vibrancy shine through to make [this story] a worthwhile read.”—Kirkus Reviews

“While Summer of the Mariposas deals with highly fantastic elements (the girls battle witches, chupacabras, and trickster demons, to name a few), this is ultimately a story about family and bonds that can never be broken. I absolutely adored this book. Everything about it, from the sisters and magic to that GORGEOUS COVER (!!), Summer of the Mariposas was a complete homerun. The imagery was beautiful, the wording was remarkable, the characters were fleshed out so well I felt as though I knew them.”—Leah Rubenstein, “The Pretty Good Gatsby”

“This unusual mythic reality tale . . . [is] a darn good story [and] it has a lyrical quality and structure that will appeal to readers who read for literary value.”—“GenreFluent”

“These are colorful characters, crowding the stage, all waiting for their turn to speak or act. It’s The Odyssey, with Mexican-American, female adventurers set against the background of a whole new land. . . . Long live the Garza girls.”—Tanita Davis, “Finding Wonderland”

“As a fun adventure story of 5 Mexican American sisters living on the border between Mexico and the U.S., this book has definite merit. There is a lot of between-the-lines information about Mexican and Mexican American culture (including such events as quinceaneros parties), a nice glossary of the some of the Spanish terms used, and terrific little Spanish proverbs or sayings at the beginning of each chapter. . . . I learned a lot!”—Betsy Farquhar, “Literaritea”

Praise for Diverse Energies

In an afterword, coeditor Monti writes about a heated 2009 discussion (dubbed “RaceFail 09”) regarding race in fantasy and science fiction, and how his reaction was to put together a collection showcasing “this wonderful, blended, messed-up world.” Hence this book, which feels different than the usual fare—characters, settings, and authors come from all across the global spectrum—and, maybe more to the point, proves to be not that different at all. It starts off with a fabulous one-two punch: Ellen Oh’s devastating “The Last Day,” about a future global war and the horrific Hiroshima-like aftermath; then “Freshee’s Frogurt,” a wild, violent, and funny excerpt from Daniel H. Wilson’s Robopocalypse (2011). In general, the subsequent stories fall on the more thoughtful, brainy side of the sf spectrum. Two standouts are Paolo Bacigalupi’s “A Pocket Full of Dharma,” about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama on a portable storage drive; and Cindy Pon’s “Blue Skies,” a wistful have/have-not tale from a smog-filthed future Taipei. A solid introduction to a number of highly talented writers.—Daniel Kraus, Booklist

“As the title promises, this sophisticated science-fiction anthology is diverse in nearly every sense of the word. Beyond their being science fiction, no single element or quality unites the collection’s stories. However, the anthology was created in response to concerns that mixed-race characters, non-Western characters, LGBTQ characters and characters of color were underrepresented in young adult fiction, and most stories bring one or more of these underrepresented identities to the foreground. Readers will find poor children working in mines and factories, a have-not yao boy kidnapping a rich you girl and a girl reeling as the world inexplicably changes around her, and no one else notices. Although many stories imagine bleak futures, their tones are refreshingly varied. Daniel Wilson’s tale of a robot attack at a frozen-yogurt shop takes the form of an almost-comical police-interview transcript. Ursula K. LeGuin’s ‘Solitude’ is a sweeping, nostalgic epic. K. Tempest Bradford’s ‘Uncertainty Principle’ is a character-driven time-travel tale. Understanding many of the stories takes patience: Readers are plunged quickly into complex worlds, and exposition often comes slowly. Careful, curious readers will be rewarded, though probably not comforted, by the many realities and futures imagined here.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This is a book I’ve been thrilled about ever since I saw it at ALA. It’s filled with incredible dystopian stories from some of the top authors out today and all of the stories feature brilliantly diverse characters. This has the potential to be a huge hit and I cannot wait to hear how much everyone loves it!”—Danielle, “There’s a Book”

“My three favourite stories are “Blue Skies”, “Good Girl” and “Solitude”. I found these stories the most thought provoking and loved the way the world creation added to the message of each story. The imagery supported the feelings of the characters – all of whom I found to be compelling in their own ways. “Solitude” I think works perfectly as short story as do the other two, but I would love for “Blue Skies” and “Good Girl” to be turned into full lengthy novels, because the worlds and characters still have much to offer. I enjoyed Bradford’s story and the premise makes this one of the best time-travel tales I’ve read. It amazes me how Bacigalupi’s and Kanakia’s stories manage to create such a strong sense of environment in the span of a short story. . . . “Pattern Recognition” and “What Arms to Hold” got me thinking about the rights of the child and the importance of questioning those in authority. “The Last Day” is well-written and thought provoking – in that depressing sort of way all stories about the futility of war make us think.”—Katja, “YA’s the Word”

“When I first heard the premise of this anthology, I was thrilled. Science fiction and dystopia stories about multicultural characters and worlds written by diverse authors? Sign me up! . . . Most of the stories were very good, and I think they explored the idea of diverse futures very well.”—Jia Vergara, “Dear Author”

I haven’t been blogging very consistently, I know—which made me only realize today that despite my many mentions of it on Twitter and Facebook, I haven’t yet talked about our New Visions Award here on the blog yet! With less than a month left before the deadline, I wanted to go a little into further detail about why we’re running this contest, and why you should share it far and wide with all your writer friends!

As you know, I focus on diversity in fantasy, science fiction, and mystery. We don’t require that our writers be people of color. Writing cross-culturally is perfectly valid—we’ve talked a lot here about how important it is to get a culture right if you’re writing cross-culturally, and to me, that’s what matters most when it comes to diversity in our books: that the books themselves reach beyond the status quo, and get it right while doing so.

But a vital part of getting it right is also welcoming voices from those communities we’re talking about, discovering new voices and adding them to the choral symphony. Look at CCBC’s 2011 numbers—the number of writers of color have mostly stagnated at roughly 6% of all books published, with roughly 8% of all books published featuring significant content about people of color (including formulaic non-fiction). Compare that with the population at large, which is roughly 25% PoC—or to the percentage of kids of color, our audience, which is fast approaching 50%—and you can see how stark those numbers really are, how bad we’ve been as an industry at offering “mirror” content to our readers and at sharing voices from their communities. If we were able to break it down into genres (does anyone have access to that kind of information? I’d love to see it), I have a feeling that YA SF and fantasy would have numbers that would look much worse.

So with that in mind, we started the New Visions Award, modeled after Lee & Low’s New Voices Award, to seek out new voices in genre fiction for young people. All the details can be found at our site (plus some awesome words about the contest from awesome people like Mitali Perkins and Nikki Grimes), but I’ll post a bit of it here so you can get an idea of what we’re looking for:

TU BOOKS, the fantasy, science fiction, and mystery imprint of LEE AND LOW BOOKS, award-winning publisher of children’s books, is pleased to announce the first annual New Visions Award. The award will be given for a middle grade or young adult fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novel by a writer of color. The Award winner receives a cash grant of $1000 and our standard publication contract, including our basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash grant of $500.

TU BOOKS was launched in 2010, dedicated to diversity in the beloved genre fiction market for young people. Titles include Wolf Mark,Tankborn, and Cat Girl’s Day Off. This fall will bring the publication of Morris Award nominee and Pura Belpré Award winner Guadalupe Garcia McCall’s Summer of the Mariposas. For more information about TU BOOKS, visit leeandlow.com/p/tu.mhtml.

Eligibility:

The contest is open to writers of color who are residents of the United States and who have not previously had a middle grade or young adult novel published.

Writers who have published work in other venues such as children’s magazines or picture books, or adult fiction or nonfiction, are eligible. Only unagented submissions will be accepted.

Work that has been published in its entirety in any format (including online and self publishing) is not eligible. Manuscripts previously submitted to TU BOOKS will not be considered.

Dates for Submission:

Submissions will be accepted from June 1, 2012, through October 31, 2012, and must be postmarked within that period.

Notice that the deadline is coming up at the end of this month!! So please share on Facebook and Twitter, share with your writing groups, share with your listservs—post it wherever it might be appropriate to share it around. Let your writer friends know! And if you, reading this right now, have a book that would be right for me, send it along!

I’d also add for those who aren’t new writers of color who want to submit a book to me, we’re always open to submissions from all writers, both agented and unagented, in our general submissions.

I just finished watching the first episode of this season of Once Upon a Time. I enjoyed the first season of the show, but did wonder why “all” the fairy tales seemed to include only tales from Europe. (However, I actually don’t wonder why it was at least tokenly diverse, as I’ve seem some wonder; actually, Europe in the Middle Ages was probably more diverse than we usually imagine it. Shakespeare wrote of “blackamoors” and the Romans were a diverse lot who ranged all over the continent and made soldiers of all their conquered foes, not to mention the Huns in Eastern Europe (I’m not well-versed on how far west the Huns got, though), and Middle Eastern cultural exchange/influences, including the Jewish diaspora. There’s another post there about how often what we’ve been taught/shown in common media contributes to these assumptions about the whiteness of history, but I digress. My point is that though diverse populations perhaps weren’t nearly as large in Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as they are today, people of color were also not unheard of in places usually thought of as ethnically white.)

My point here is that it was refreshing, then, to have Mulan show up in the first episode of the season. Yay for strong Asian female characters!

Well, character. Singular. It’s only the first episode of the season, so it remains to be seen whether we’ll see more people from Mulan’s world. But this episode brought up a lot of questions that I wanted to just make a list of, in hopes that there will be answers eventually; I’ll try to remember to revisit this later in the season to see if they’ve been addressed. The show has done a pretty good job, after all, of answering the questions it raises, if excruciatingly slowly.

Reminder: here be SPOILERS. You’ve been warned. Check out a clip in which Mulan is revealed:

Only the first few questions are actual concerns.

Why was Mulan in a love triangle with Prince Philip? I am very happy Mulan didn’t end up sacrificing herself so the white couple could get together (see Vasquez Always Dies), but I have a bad feeling overall about the dynamic between these three. (I don’t mind love triangles per se, but given the next question…)

Where is Li Shang? Maybe something tragic happened to him, which would be interesting yet not at the same time because…

Will we see an Asian male love interest? Will they beat the stereotypes Hollywood has created of Asian men, or continue to play into them with Asian women (woman) only paired with white men? I mean, if Mulan broke up with Li Shang and he found someone else who we’ll meet later, cool. But I have my doubts, and not just because that’s adding a bunch of characters they probably don’t have room for.

Not Mulan related, but it does actually make me wonder if we’ll see more diversity in our other secondary characters with love stories—will we ever meet Tiana and Prince Naveen? Aladdin and Princess Jasmine?

Can anyone tell me where that armor Mulan wore is from? This is just my initial gut reaction and might be wrong, but why is Mulan wearing what looks to me like some form of Middle Eastern armor rather than Chinese armor? Maybe it’s just the helmet that gives off that impression. Actually, I think it’s just the helmet—the other picture below looks a little more like the armor from the animated movie and, for example, the Yuan dynasty-tributary Goryo-era warriors in Faith have similar armor (though for all I know that could be way off, historically—I am by no means an expert in this area and I’m just judging based on things I’ve seen in modern-era productions, which could have been poorly researched for all I know and which of course don’t cover the full array of possibilities). So what it boils down to is that her helmet doesn’t match my expectations. There could, of course, be a perfectly reasonable answer to that, particularly one that involves my own ignorance, but it’s making me wary. Perhaps this is armor from a different era of China’s history? Armor experts, speak up!

I’m not a fan of her hair—most of the rest of the fairy tale characters in fairy tale world had hair that looked at least roughly like their animated counterparts, and Mulan’s hair in the military was the sensible topnot above—but that’s a minor quibble. But I am curious how that hairdo is in any way compatible with hanging mail around your face. When she’s first revealed, her hair is completely hanging loose—under a mail veil. What?? If that helmet is historically accurate, I can see why a topknot would be vitally important, aside from other possible reasons to wear one.

Also, how does hanging mail around your face make it in any way possible to SEE? Those eyeholes were TINY. But perhaps this (the mail, not the hair) is actually historically accurate for a Chinese warrior of Mulan’s era, so I’d love to hear from anyone who might know one way or the other.

This is just my own curiosity speaking now, nothing problematic. What is a qui shen? Linguistically, I mean. Is it any relation to a gwishin (Korean ghost)? I’m curious if that’s a Sino-Korean word. Or perhaps it’s just made up entirely for the purposes of this show. Unless, of course, a qui shen isn’t Chinese and again we’re somehow melding cultures for some reason, which would be problematic.

This last one’s just a minor quibble, and will likely be developed over time, or at least I hope so, given the events of this episode seeming to set us up for some good exploration of these new characters. From what I can tell from Wikipedia (not the best source, but the internet isn’t very helpful tonight), in the original Ballad of Mulan, Hua Mulan fought for 12 years in her father’s place, cross-dressing the whole time; no one found out about it until after she retired home. In the Disney version, she stopped being a warrior after she saved the country and returned home, but her gender was discovered before that. So perhaps she’s the Disney version (all the others have been) who is from sometime after her gender was discovered but before returning home, which could be either before or after saving her nation from the Huns; her story might have been detoured given the curse. Fair enough, if so, but that takes us right back to the beginning: where is Li Shang? Where are her friends from her unit? She wasn’t a lone warrior woman. But of course, perhaps that’s in her backstory TBD, and I’m willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt.

I had an 80gb Ipod Classic, which lasted me at least 5 years, maybe six. I think I bought it in 06 or 07. It died earlier this year and I’ve been trying to make do with my phone. I have a great phone. I love it. I’m not going to buy the Iphone 5 because I have everything I need on the phone… except Itunes. Pretty much everything is covered on my Android (Galaxy Nexus) but a good music management + podcast app in one, and I want to be able to watch the videos I have bought on Itunes, too. (I have unlimited data, so most of what I watch on my phone—at lunch, for example, or while out walking to/from the train—is streamed on Hulu or Netflix, but you can’t stream underground on the subway, and you can’t read on the subway ALL the time; not to mention Doctor Who doesn’t stream current episodes here in the States, at least.) I can’t figure out how to make any of the Android podcasting apps work right for my podcast playlists (I make playlists of Talk to Me in Korean lessons, for example, that I want to listen to in order); Google Music can’t seem to figure out that no, the order is NOT Lesson 1, Lesson 10, Lesson 11, Lesson 12, … Lesson 2, Lesson 20… No app that promises to import well from Itunes has done it right, and I’ve tried several. It’s all a big headache.

So my plan is to go back to what was working: my phone for everything but music and the occasional offline video or game.

Which leads us to the choices:

160 gb classic—will hold everything, but tiny video screen for porting around the few offline videos I want (Doctor Who and a few old anime series), being able to watch video on the subway. This is pretty much what I used my old dead Ipod for, except it was 80gb. Nice room to grow for new music, and more. I liked the clickwheel for a few old-fashioned games, too.

Ipod Touch. Don’t ever plan to get an iphone, but I wouldn’t mind a Touch as a secondary device. Biggest possible size is only 64 gb, though, which is part of the problem with my phone (it’s like a more expensive version of a shuffle, which is silly), but at least I could move all the music there, and everything else would stay on my phone. More expensive for less storage space, but a nice big screen for an ipod (but as a phone/streaming device/most apps I use, my Galaxy still has Iphone beat). I wouldn’t mind trying out the camera, too–from what I can tell, it does seem to have better optics than my cell phone camera (though either would just be for snapshots; I use my SLR for important pictures, but I don’t carry my SLR around with me—the dang thing is too heavy for everyday use).

Buy an older Ipod off e-bay or whatever for cheap. Who cares about screen size if you can get the same thing you’ve been wanting your poor dead ipod to do for months, and not finding a good alternative in what you’ve got on hand? (Though I note that someone thinks they can get $268 out of me for a Classic that only costs $249 brand new on Apple’s site).

If you were me—and by that, I mean relatively poor, have no need to changes phones (just upgraded to my current phone in April), had my usage patterns, etc.; I truly mean if you were me, not if you with your own set of circumstances were in a position to have these choices, if that makes sense—which would you choose?

I’m leaning toward the Touch, but that feels super extravagant when I already have a phone that does most of what the Touch does. The only real advantage to it is the screen size, and how often would I use it?

There is ONE more option, I suppose, which might work, as far as having portable Itunes, but it’s an option I wouldn’t be able to afford for a while: an Ipad. It’s certainly an idea I’ve toyed with, but it’s also the least portable of the options (I can’t clip it to my waist and go for a bike ride, which I always did with my ipod), and the most expensive.

How many times have I heard people call living on a farm or living in the past “simple”? Ursula K. Le Guin has a point here, in a quote from “Solitude,” her story in Diverse Energies:

Our daily life in the auntring was repetitive. On the ship, later, I learned that people who live in artificially complicated situations call such a life “simple.” I never knew anybody, anywhere I have been who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details, the way a planet looks smooth, from orbit.

There’s more where that came from in the anthology! You can pre-order it now online (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) or look for it when it comes out in October.

Long weekend ahead! I’m really looking forward to enjoying the freedom that I’ve inherited (remembering those who died in the Armed Services) by putting some final touches on my not-so-new-anymore apartment, like hanging pictures on the walls and getting that last set of curtains up. I should probably put the AC in as well. And finally see all those movies I’ve been meaning to see, like Avengers and Hunger Games. And all those manuscripts I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t gotten to yet. Not to mention published books.

I’m starting to exhaust myself just planning the weekend.

I also need to give the house a thorough spring cleaning because I’ve been fostering a kitten.Not that he’s gone yet—he still needs to find a home—but having three cats in this house is making the place stink, even when I’m vigilant. I’m sure there are things I can do to streamline the cleaning process while he’s here, but it’s going to mean some organizing over the long weekend.

At any rate, it occurred to me that I haven’t posted anything about this here, and that I should, just in case anyone is out there ready to give this little guy a forever home (and I’ll probably do the adoption through a local pet rescue just to be sure, perhaps Kitty Kind, to be sure the home he goes to is committed to him). Three cats is okay for temporary measures, but it’s just too much for this little apartment long term. Cute as the little guy is, I can’t commit to him long-term—it’s not fair to the two I already have, and he needs someone who can.

Here’s the info I’m giving to the rescues as I try to figure out how to list him so that potential owners can find him (Petfinder doesn’t do classifieds anymore and Craigslist feels kind of sketchy for pets, but I could be wrong):

Name: Harlem (because that’s where he was found)

Age: 10-12 weeks

Found: at 7 or 8 weeks in a laundromat at 149th and Broadway in Harlem, where he was dirty and starving, probably abandoned by a human because he didn’t have fleas or other signs of having been on the streets all his life, though he did have a distended belly; he hadn’t eaten for long enough that it took him 3 days to poop after being given appropriate food and water. He is now healthy and happy after a vet visit in which he was tested and came out FeLV/FIV/Heartworm negative, and after antibiotics for his cold and some deworming.Personality: Lively and hilarious, kind of mischievous! He loves to cuddle–though not when romping about the house, of course. He loves to dash from hiding place to hiding place so you can’t catch him, but he’ll come out for his favorite toy, the ball that runs around in a track. He’s just at that kitten age where he’s discovering all th

Mostly because I was curious how much of it was out there in the last couple years with paranormal and dystopian being so popular, I made a list of high fantasy for young adults published in the last couple of years. I went as far back as 2010, and it’s still not that large a list. Feel free to suggest in the comments books I might have missed, but remember–only books from 2010 to the present. If you’re looking at a paperback, be sure the original version of the book was that recent.

Apologies—just realized today that the link to my Pinterest with the up-to-date booklists on the old science fiction fantasy booklist page was broken and only linking to the picture of the page, not the page itself. Sorry!

Several of the contributors to Diverse Energies will also be at ALA, and though they don’t have a specific signing time, they will be dropping in to sign select copies of the book. Perhaps you might be the lucky one to win a copy in a drawing. And if you just want to read some awesome stories, signed or not, from Ursula K. Le Guin, Paolo Bacigalupi, Daniel H. Wilson, Cindy Pon, Malinda Lo, Greg van Eekhout, and more, make sure to stop by and take a look.

And whether or not you’re off to California this weekend, if you’re a reviewer or a librarian and on NetGalley (and if you’re one of those and NOT on NetGalley, check it out) our fall books are now available for you to request for review. Take a look!

On Facebook today, I’ve started a poll that anyone is welcome to answer. Let me know: do you prefer e-books to print books or vice versa? Both, depending on the circumstances? Or do you forget e-books entirely and go for audio instead of e-books? Check it out and weigh in!

Now that it’s been circulating around for a while, I thought I’d show off the gorgeous Diverse Energies cover right here, in case you missed it in the hundred other places people are talking about it. In other news, I haven’t had much time for blogging lately, but I am working hard on Awakening by Karen Sandler (Tankborn 2) and New Worlds by Shana Mlawski (spring books) as well as books for next fall that include Joseph Bruchac’s next book. Here’s the description we sent to Publisher’s Marketplace:

Stacy Whitman at Lee & Low Books has bought world rights for Wolf Mark author Joseph Bruchac’s newest YA Killer of Enemies, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel with a steampunk twist, for publication in fall 2013 under the Tu Books imprint. Described as “space cowboys in the new Old West,” it retells the story of Lozen, the monster slayer of Apache legend, in a world where space dust has rendered digital technology obsolete. Barbara S. Kouts of the Barbara S. Kouts Agency did the deal.

Awesome, right? I’m SO EXCITED for it, you guys. And, without further ado, check out this gorgeousness from designer Ben Mautner. And the lineup? If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out after the cover.

No one can doubt that the wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. No one can doubt that cooperation in the pursuit of knowledge must lead to freedom of the mind and freedom of the soul.

—President John F. Kennedy, from a speech at University of California, March 23, 1962

In a world gone wrong, heroes and villains are not always easy to distinguish and every individual has the ability to contribute something powerful.

New York, NY; July 26, 2012 – Las Comadres Para Las Americas, the national Latina organization, will present a day-long conference on October 6 for Latino writers seeking more access into the publishing industry.

Comadres and Compadres Writers Conference will be held at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, Brooklyn. Joining La Comadres as collaborators are the National Black Writers Conference, the Center for Black Literature, the Foreign Language Department and the Latino American Association, Full Circle Literary, Marcela Landres, and Scholastic, with support from the Association of American Publishers.

Through the workshops, panels and other sessions, writers will gain an insider’s perspective into how to best navigate the challenges and opportunities of the industry.
A highlight of the day will be a full schedule of one-on-one meetings for writers with agents and editors. Participants currently include Johanna Castillo, Vice President & Senior Editor/Atria, Simon & Schuster: Jaime de Pablos, Director/Vintage Español, Knopf Doubleday Group; Adriana Dominguez, Agent/Full Circle Literary; Mercedes Fernandez, Assistant Editor/Dafina Books, Kensington Publishing; Sulay Hernandez, Editor/Other Press; Cheryl Klein, Executive Editor/Arthur A. Levine Books; Selina L. McLemore, Senior Editor/Grand Central Publishing; Christina Morgan, Editor/Harcourt Houghton Mifflin; Lukas Ortiz, Managing Director/Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency, Inc.; Diane Stockwell, Founder/Globo Libros Literary Management; and Stacy Whitman, Founder and Editorial Director/Tu Books.
Scheduled panels will examine magazines and literary journals, genres, poetry, children’s/young adult writing, fiction, non-fiction, publicity and self-publishing. There will also be a session for authors to pitch their work and get instant feedback as well as an agents/editors panel.

Keynote speaker is author and television personality Sonia Manzano. Having originated the role of “Maria” on Sesame Street, Manzano wrote two children’s books, No Dogs Allowed (Simon and Schuster, 2004) and A Box Full of Kittens (Simon and Schuster, 2007), and will have her first YA novel, The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, published by Scholastic in Fall 2012.

Las Comadres is a nationwide grassroots-based group of Latinas launched informally in 2000 in Austin, TX. The national networks, created in 2003, have grown to over 100 US cities. Its 15,000 strong membership keeps Latinas connected via email networks, teleconferences, and monthly potluck events in individual cities. In conjunction with the Association of American Publishers, it sponsors a national book club promoting the work of Latino authors and encouraging literacy. The National Latino Book Club is currently celebrating its fourth year